Isabel Litwin-Davies

Founder and Managing Director

Isabel founded Sustenra after 15 years holding direct responsibility within the kinds of institutions her clients now need to assess. She has worked inside public research funders, multilateral health bodies, and commercial research environments. In each, she encountered the same structural gap: no senior, independent advisor present through delivery to tell funders when funded commitments were at risk and why.

Her Work

Isabel has held direct responsibility for allocating and governing large-scale impact funding at the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR), the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), and Karolinska Institutet. Her experience comes from roles held inside these organisations, not from advisory distance.

At NIHR, she co-authored and implemented the Theory of Change for the £132M Research on Interventions for Global Health Transformation (RIGHT) programme, overseeing portfolio-level performance across 45+ international grants on behalf of the UK Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). This role required sustained judgment on which partners could structurally deliver against complex multi-country mandates. The exact assessment Sustenra now provides to funders.

She has also worked within commercial research and clinical development environments, grounding her understanding of delivery timelines, contractual accountability, and investor expectations in structured programmes. Isabel maintains current working knowledge of which delivery organisations demonstrate structural credibility under pressure and which are now seeking new institutional relationships. That ground-level intelligence informs the partner identification work Sustenra does on behalf of clients.

Selected Areas of Expertise

Portfolio governance across public and private funding environments
Partner identification, vetting, and capital deployment support
Investment due diligence for social programmes and impact funds
Governance assessment for research-funded implementation programmes
Programme stabilisation and structural risk assessment
Funding lifecycle design, due diligence, and accountability frameworks
Multi-country delivery oversight and performance visibility

Education

MSc in Global Public Health, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden

BA (Hons) in International Development and African Studies, The School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London

Work with Isabel

If you need an independent view of whether a funded commitment has the governance conditions to perform, want to identify structurally credible delivery partners, or need senior oversight of a portfolio under pressure, contact us to discuss what a confidential engagement might involve.

Request a confidential conversation